SWTOR Forces Players to Share Surname Between All Characters?

Star Wars : The Old Republic just recently revealed its new legacy system. Players who complete the Chapter 1 storyline may choose a Legacy Surname. And then, they have opportunities earn Legacy Experience Points which in turn raises their Legacy Level. So what’s the catch? The first is that the Legacy Surname must be unique. No problem there! The second is that the name is shared among all characters a player has on that server.

Legacy System: Helps or Hurts Role Play?

Being a die-hard Iron Realms gamer, this concept was completely foreign to me. Like Ultima Online, Iron Realms allows independent surnames with a free-form naming system. If my alts in any of their five popular MMORPGs shared the same surname or bloodline, there would be serious allegations questioning my integrity as a player! Each game also offers some kind of family system allowing characters to choose their own level of involvement. Additionally, tying a surname to a given name is completely optional!

Some Star Wars players like this change, and applaud the new Legacy Surname system. Forcing all characters one person plays on the same server to wear the same surname helps to eliminate the concept of anonymous griefers. (For players who wish to take advantage of the Legacy System without revealing a surname, the option exists to turn off the display.) However, some other players feel the game is trying too hard to compete with similar MMORPGs, like Lord of the Rings or Guild Wars. One disgruntled gamer likened the change to a one-person guild system that desensitizes players to the concept of true roleplay.

A legacy system is great in its own right. It offers players an opportunity to earn bonus rewards at certain milestones. But when the rewards come with strings that restrict the ability to roleplay a character to its full potential, as with Star Wars’ new family system, it makes the game less appealing. Combining two otherwise unrelated elements might work in a themepark environment. But combining the two in a sandbox format where players are encouraged to interact and work together to enhance the roleplay setting? Not so much.

Part of a successful roleplaying adventure lies in the freedom of creativity. Forcing characters to do things like wear a surname linking them to their alts sucks the fun right out of the game. One perk to Iron Realms games is that characters aren’t locked into a any kind of social environment within the realm. Even the ones who do choose to join a family system within the game are still often welcome within the ranks of clans belonging to families of spouses, friends, or even adoptive parents. One of my characters belongs to five different family clans, and not one of them is relevant to his blood family!

What are your thoughts? What if Iron Realms forced all characters using the same Iron Elite account to wear the same surname, or belong to the same family system? How would this change the way you play your characters? Answers to these questions and all other comments are welcome in the section below!

Actually, this is a good point. If all my characters shared the same surname, everyone would know that they were all me and that would really, really screw any chance I had for meaningful RP on them. I couldn't rightly play a Mhaldorian and an Eleusian like that because people would see the name and just keep thinking, "Oh, it's that person. I know they play for the other side, too."

Now that I read this again I have one other thing to add. In our games you have a chance of getting married with possible name change, adoption, changing families. How would that work out the other way?

I do not see how a big issue there. Players could roleplay the family thing well, if they would. Of course, if mandatory the legacy system clearly jeopardizes players possibility. It is a restriction, in the end. That's pretty simple.

The trouble with this idea is that since the name must be both unique and shared across your characters, it means that there are no circumstances where your family roleplay can come into effect. This isn't just assigning an account name that may or may not be displayed but is otherwise irrelevant, it's the character's surname that's being pre-empted by what is essentially a loyalty incentive, necessarily a purely out-of-character mechanic. This doesn't just restrict family style roleplaying, it eliminates it entirely since no two members of a given family under that system can be on at the same time, and even if they are, both are actually the same player.

This would stop you completly seperateing the characters you had in a particular game becaue people would still know it was your from the surname. Works for a game that isn't so focused on rp, but unlikely to be good for ire.

i like the idea of keeping people connected. However detachment is also good, no matter how good you are at RP. its extremely difficult to keep detached if a person, for example, destroys your city. Then his brother asks to be accepted, knowing its the same RL person.

I think this will be cool, I was a big far of the KOTOR games, so I'm totally into the new MMO version. Additionally, I think it'll be really cool having something that people can recognize, even if they don't know who "Kyle Le'mar Haagandaz" is, they totally recognize the surname of "Haagandaz", and probably not just cuz of the ice cream!

Incredibly shortsighted. Many of us play multiple characters with significantly different personalities, and ther are things we do on one which would be horrific on another, but totally fits the game world. I personally don't trust most people to keep the actions of the two characters separate from the player - which is why exactly four people, all very close friends, know who my main is.

I think the main problem with that is if you decide to do some kind of major RP move, like joining a different faction. (Not sure if that's possible on Star Wars or not) But, then it's impossible to change your title. I've seen many people in IRE games change title after moving cities, or accepting a new surname that is related to the city they've joined. (Mhaldor has a few surnames like this)

If it was tied to Elite Membership, it would be enough reason not to have an Elite Membership. The great thing about alts is that you can experience the world through different eyes. If you everyone knows its you, then you are robbed of that experience.

It's extremely difficult to role-play (or even just play) effectively when everyone knows you're the same player as a more famous (or infamous) character. It might work for SWTOR, which I suspect has less interplayer role-play than Achaea (if only because being restricted to an existing continuity limits things somewhat), but not for Achaea (and I suspect not for other IRE games either.)

I think it's a tricky situation. In an MMO like Star Wars, my guild-mates and I may be a little RP-esque with cause we love Star Wars, but not as intense as IRE games by any stretch of the imagination. It's still going to be like WoW for us, just hack slash, win, etc while loving the fact we're Sith/Bad Guys. Now if we had the same idea for IRE games..that would be terrible, anyone could know your alts with just a glance, and if they had bad feelings about your other character on an OOC level, they'll probably at least unconsciously translate that to interacting with your other character.

One of the things I've desired is that no one know who else I play as. I have three characters, all in different orgs, some of which really don't get along. Knowing things creates expectations as well. I have alts who never do anything but lackaday and that's how I want it. I do enough work with Stratas. I don't want anyone having expectations of my alts because they know there's a connection.

Also, the 'alts in different orgs' things would ruin the snobby superiority of Stratas's two families, being almost entirely Glom only.

Pretty much this. My Taurian Ebonguard is more or less level-headed outside of combat, but my budding Geomancer is out and out paranoid and his tertiary and trade skill will help reinforce how he doesn't quite trust anyone completely.

I guess one would be classified as a Non-Toire Brujah and the other as a Malkavian. I wonder how many people will get that.

... oh, right! As it stands, across all IREs I've played, sharing a surname across one's alts is *possible* (and easier if it's via a secondary source, big family of other players that those alts have various ties to), but generally borders so close on seconds abuse it's rediculous and generally discouraged. The only times I've seen it done well where it was a name originating from a given player and shared across his/her alts were in a situation where those alts were retired before the next came about, giving family ties that explain away minor mistakes on having preexisting knowledge from the previous character, while avoiding the usual worries over seconds abuse.

The way the system currently works in Achaea is perfect, there is no need to go this route at all as Achaea is all about roleplay and it would not make any sense... I myself am not bloodlined to anyone, yet I am probably the only one who bears the Kahn surname... I prefer it this way, who knows perhaps some day i will start my own legacy.

If my memory serves me well, your multiple characters have to be strictly separated from each other. While this is easy to roleplay if you just use different surnames (or none at all), I could imagine it to be pretty hard, especially if, let's say, two almost newbie characters shared a rather rare and exotic surname, since that would somehow imply (at least for me) that they're in the same family.

The system as it is is great now, there shouldn't be a need to bother with such changes.

If everyone could roleplay perfectly it would work well but they can't, therefore it is a horroble idea. If Joe knows Suzie, "his wife" is also Brutus, "the thug who robs and murders him regularly" then Suzie isn't going to get any flowers for valentines day. I don't care how good you are at roleplay. You can't forget that they aren't really the same person. I can't believe we are even considering the idea.

If you have the same surname on all your characters, I feel like that would hurt the diversity of perspectives you would be able to pull from. I mean, members of a family are diverse to a point, but they often share a set of core values.

I think honestly that it would be the death of much roleplay possibilities. As was mentioned if everyone knows all your alts, it will affect how others interact with them, and what the limitations of your interaction will be. It colors all interaction with all alts you have. One of my concerns would be what happens should one of your characters become an extreme pariah? It means alts could be burdened with the social stigma of another character, conciously or otherwise, which is disolving rp right there.

For me, the point of an alt is always to try something new without having to totally rearrange the lives and fortunes of a main character you are happy with or maybe grown tired of playing at any rate, and to start fresh for curiosity's sake or any number of reasons, none of which happen to be so that everyone and their uncle can be immediately informed of the fact that while the name, race, city, guild/house, order, and alignment can be completely opposite to the previous name, it's still me. If I want folks knowing that, I'll tell them, and I do tell them.

I can't imagine that were this to be tried, that anything positive would come of it.

Seriously, not to knock anyone but do you seriously roleplay on MMO's like this? I can get the RP aspect of a text based game because in all actuality you are creating everything visually with the power of your attractive mind, but I don't think I could ever get into hardcore roleplaying on something like SW or WoW. It's a little too much for me.

Wouldn't want this. It's impossible to forget when you know two separate characters are played by the same person, no matter how hard you try. Sure, you can act ICly that you don't, but it's always in the back of your mind.

This seems like a bad idea, considering how surnames are often used in RP for family-related ties, and...yeah, potential seconds abuse? More than that, though, the differing sides are pretty antagonistic...

To put it simply, it breaks immersion since it makes it too easy to tempt people to carry vendettas across characters - It is only a matter of time before someone figures out a way to search for someone by surname and makes a list of all the characters with that surname... BOOM! Easy griefing.

I can see where they're coming from - helps you identify the other players. But this works better for an MMO not structured around RP, as Iron Realms MUDs are, and anyway in STWOR there's only two sides. Would *not* want it in Lusternia.

terrible idea. It would make creating different characters and trying to play different roles almost entirely possible. The caliph makes an alt in Mhaldor and everyone knows it' the caliphs alt? That's gonna go down well.

Plus, completely OOC mechanic brought in game on a highly influential level that kills character separation? No thanks

Definitely a double-edged sword. I personally wouldn't have a problem because most of my alts never really last too long and they're always in different organizations so multi-playing accusations aren't there. That and I don't make a habit of doing the usual alt-idiot thing TELL SOANDSO Hi! This is (insert name of alt) because they just can't keep a secret to save their life and have different friends! Anyways, I think this is good and bad, but I think better alternatives to avoiding alt abuse are there.

While I don't tend to actually RP in visual games, only in the text world because I'm spoiled and like the high level of freedom, I don't like the idea that I HAVE to identify all of my characters with myself.

What if I wanted to play the game but take a little break from my normal gaming partners? Wouldn't want to insult anyone by sulking off to another character which would be obvious once they saw the last name.

meh, I wouldn't want this, but then again, if it were a standard thing instead of an Iron Elite membership thing, I'd be pretty...well..pissed to put it plainly (sorry kids, but that's my feelings/opinion), I don't like linking my characters, the only link they have is that each one I play is an aspect of me IRL, no more, no less, Xeran here is my poetic creativity, and my imagination, my other alts you'll have to figure out, but as I said, each one is creative in their own way, but in general IS an aspect of me.